Posts filed under 'Advertising'
It seems Flying Lab Software, developers of Pirates of the Burning Sea, has begun to actively recruit members for an elite fan group who they hope will “increase online and offline awareness of the game.” They have a sign-up form here, and anyone who’s interested in the game should probably go sign up right now.
I should note that this isn’t your ordinary sign-up. As they said in their blog post: “Boarding Party Membership is a privilege and not every person that applies will get to participate. As a matter of fact, begging, cajoling, harassing, demanding or complaining about your lack of membership is a sure-fire way to ruin your chances to participate.” The application supports this, requiring written answers to several questions. It even includes a chance to submit a writing sample!
Sounds like this is a chance to become a real, active participant in the community surrounding PotBS. I’m pleased that the developers are taking community building seriously. The community comprises people who care about the game, so it should be well served—hopefully in creative ways. Further, a well-developed community can in turn serve as a valuable resource for developers and designers.
As I may have mentioned, I’m quite excited about the game. I suspect it will quickly become my game of choice. In the meantime, though, if I’m lucky enough to become of The Boarding Party, I’ll be thrilled at the chance to get involved in the community even as it’s forming.
September 25th, 2007
Well, the Ultimate Search for Bourne does seem to be well an truly over despite the ambiguous ending. The countdown clock and “415″ don’t seem to have meant anything significant. The web page now just redirects to the official site for the movie.
Here’s my final take on the game: I thought it was pretty lame. I know it’s meant to be a promotion, so it has to have a low enough bar for entry that anyone can play and have fun. So although I personally didn’t like how easy it was, I understand that decision.
But I thought that, especially as the days progressed, it felt less and less like I spy game. I had originally speculated that an alternate reality game (ARG) like this could be the best medium for a spy game. My first day or two of play, the challenges felt fun. I felt a tiny bit like I was engaging in Internet-based espionage.
That feeling faded by the third day. Perhaps the buggy interface is partly to blame. I’m certain the fact that the challenges felt exactly the same from one to another contributed.
By the end, even with a final challenge that was slightly more interesting, the cloak-and-dagger delight was gone.
I still think an MMORPG with a strong Internet-based ARG element could be phenomenally fun. But that ARG element would have to be a lot better than the Ultimate Search for Bourne.
The game may not have been fun, but it was a “success.” It kept many people busy thinking about the movie, even as they complained about the game’s problems. And despite my disappoiintment with the game, I’ll be seeing the movie. The bonus video at the end was a lame “reward,” but definitely a fun clip.
So, anyone have any other thoughts? Or pointers to any other, better ARGs worth investigating?
Thanks to all the readers and commenters, by the way. You made the game more fun than it ever would have been on your own.
August 4th, 2007
Just a quick note to let readers know that it’s possible to qualify for the Ultimate Search for Bourne iPhone contest without getting enough sightings. The official rules let you enter with a postcard but it must be postmarked by tomorrow, Saturday, 4 Auguist 2007.
Here’s the relevant passage:
Entrant(s) who obtain surveillance points that fall in the range from twenty-five (25) to thirty-two (32) points online during the Sweepstakes Period will automatically receive one (1) entry (“Sightings Internet Entry”) into the Sightings Sweepstakes. To enter the Sightings Sweepstakes by mail without Game play, legibly hand-print your first and last name, complete home address (including street address, city, state/province and zip code/postal code), date of birth, telephone number (including area code), email address and the surveillance code name “Sighting Mission” on a postcard (no larger than 6” x 8”) and mail, with proper postage affixed to: The Ultimate Search for Bourne with Google, P.O. Box 10301, Burbank, CA 91510 (“Sightings Mail Entry”). Each Sightings Mail Entry submitted will receive thirty-two (32) surveillance points (the maximum number of points obtainable by Game play) equaling one (1) Entry into the Sightings Sweepstakes. Online Entries for each Daily Sweepstakes and Grand Prize Drawing must be received by 11:59:50 p.m. EDT during that day’s date; Sightings Internet Entries must be received by 11:59:59 p.m. EDT on August 3, 2007; and Sightings Mail Entries must be postmarked by August 4, 2007 and received by August 10, 2007 (collectively “Entries”).
To everyone: good luck!
August 3rd, 2007
The final day of the Ultimate Search for Bourne is here, and here’s a complete spoiler for the last challenge.
And today’s challenge starts out quite differently. All we have is a link to http://www.readteston.com/ (note that the web site title is “ReadTeStOn”; I don’t know why). The screen is filled with an odd video, only the numbers 1 and 4 flashing oddly on the left. I tried typing them (after clicking on the screen in general), but that did nothing
Mouse over these numbers, and they’ll resolve into the number 5 (4+1?). Click the 5, and you get the familiar log-in screen for your instant messenger, with agent handle landypamela already filled in.
Solving this requires knowledge of The Bourne Supremacy. If you click on the ? at the top right of the dialog, you get a hint reading: “Which set of files was Pamela Landy looking for in Berlin when she found Bourne’s fingerprint?” The answer is the “Neski files.”
So type Neski in as the passphrase and hit Submit, and you’ll be rewarded with a “bonus video” from the same fellow who’s been offering congratulations all along.
The main reward is a fairly extended clip, apparently from the new Bourne Ultimatum movie. He says, “I know this wasn’t easy.” I can’t say I agree. Today’s challenge was a slight bit of a challenge, yes, but I would have liked them to be this hard from the beginning, with much harder ones as the game progressed. I guess that wouldn’t make for a generally accessible promotion, though.
The clip is entertaining, though. It does make me somewhat more interested in seeing the film. So in the end, I guess the promotion has done its job . . . with me at least.
I’ll be posting a wrap-up sometime soon, but I’d invite anyone to share their own final thoughts in the comments on this post. Looking forward to hearing how everyone did and what everyone thought!
Edit: I should mention that, as commenter Z points out, the main game’s UI seems to be finished. It gives you the link to the ReadTeStOn site, but does nothing else. No chance to place more cameras; no nothing. I wouldn’t have minded a congratulations message, let alone a chance to up my sightings score for an iPhone contest entry, but I guess that’s not to be.
August 3rd, 2007
Here’s a complete spoiler of the answer to the day fourteen puzzle in the Ultimate Search for Bourne.
Our briefing tells us Bourne is lying in the video we captured yesterday and recommends getting in touch with Mustapha Nayet, the video expert, through the instant messenger for ideas on how to deal with lies in audio samples.
It’s been a while, so if you don’t remember, you need to use agent handle Mouslelion and passphrase Vive le maroc in the instant messenger to get in touch with Mustapha. When you do, he’ll tell you: “You’ve got the tools. Search for yourself. These keywords may help: Bourne lie detection Treadstone.”
The trick is to enter the phrase bourne lie detection treadstone into Google Image Search (images.google.com). When you do, you’ll see a picture stored at the Dater Notes site called “How to spot a lie.” (The French “mensonge détection” is there, too, with a miraculously identical coffee mug stain. Spoils suspension of disbelief, but I have to admit I’m impressed that Google Image Search found a relevant non-English version based on the English text entered into the search box. It didn’t find a German version, though. I suspect there’s one out there.)
For once, we don’t have to enter the image into the Decryption tool (which doesn’t work at all for some readers). Instead, we have to follow the final advice from the sheet: “Digital studio analysis can expose a marked increase in transients and visual distortion of the waveform due to stress and the constriction of the larynx under duress. Though the lie may pass aural cues of detection, often the best liars can’t escape waveform analysis.”. The video we found yesterday is in the Media section under Videos and is called “Waveform Video.” I had to click the Video button about three times to get it to show up.
Since Jason Bourne helpfully included a visual waveform readout of his spoken message, all we have to do is watch for those phrases in which the waveform becomes agitated and distorted, as illustrated on the “How to spot a lie” sheet. This happens with the phrase: Stay here.
The answer to today’s puzzle is to type Stay here. in the message transmitter and hit Submit.
Since neither of my camera’s caught a shot of Bourne yesterday, including the one that did catch a sighting the day before that, I’m back to just random guessing. Anyone have a better idea for camera placement?
(Edited to correct a minor error in the answer. Thanks, O Great Commenters!)
August 2nd, 2007
Here’s the complete spoiler for the day 13 challenge in the Ultimate Search for Bourne game.
Our briefing tells us that amoung our video files is a “very public” apparent trailer that contains an instant message handle, straight from Jason Bourne. We’ll use this in the transmitter to get the answer to today’s puzzle. This video showed up as “Altered Trailer” on my wife’s machine and started playing automatically, but I was completely unable to get it to display on mine. More evidence that the UI is irritatingly buggy, as some commenters have observed. (Note: I was able to get the video to play on my own machine about five minutes later.)
The video has many promotional titles that, together, read, “His identity erased. His loved one murdered. His past stolen. On August 3rd, Bourne comes home. The Bourne Ultimatum.” Slightly harder to see (I used the pause button to catch them exactly) are JoanneBrous (an anagram of “Jason Bourne) and the familiar TREADSTONE ALL LIES. Key these in to the Instant Messenger as the agent handle and passphrase, and you’ll get a link to a YouTube video (here) with an audio message from Bourne: “This is Jason Bourne. Listen. Stay here. Do exactly what I say. And you’ll get further instructions.”
That’s all well and good, but don’t be distracted. As with the other days’ puzzles, the answer is very simple. It’s the URL itself that we have to put in the Message Transmitter to solve the challenge.
Click “Submit Answer” under the daily briefing and paste the URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq0iKP8c3D0 in as your answer. Transmit it, and you’re done.
It’s possible there’s a clue to camera placement in today’s video, but I didn’t recognize any of the shots of the Big Apple, even when the clip had someone saying “within 1000 yards of this building,” which sounded promising. So I went with proximity, and put the nearest camera at 5 West 37th Street. I don’t know if there’s anything exciting or spyish in that building, a high-rise office building, but it’s right next to Madison Square Park, yesterday’s solution and the place where my first New York City camera caught a sighting of Bourne.
August 1st, 2007
There’s nothing much there yet, but the Bollywood3d web site is live. One Sanjit, apparently associated with the effort, commented on my last post on the subject. He mentioned that, yes, it’ll be possible for people in the U.S. to play, so I’ll be watching very, very closely.
July 31st, 2007
Here’s a complete spoiler for the answer to today’s challenge in the Ultimate Search for Bourne.
We’re in New York City now (the metropolis that was the solution to yesterday’s puzzle), and the briefing tells us to head back to Dater Notes to check Nicky Parson’s (buckeye2099) profile. As I guessed yesterday, the photo of a napkin with a rough map with Broadway on it (and a kiss) scribbled on it is the key. It’s named with one of Bourne’s earlier aliases—John Michael Kane (as a reader pointed out in yesterday’s comments; thanks John!). The briefing explicitly tells us to key the photo’s URL into the image processor.
Applying filter C reveals the solution: Madison Square Park. Paste this into the communication panel, and we’re done.
Edit: Note that commenters discovered that the photo can be displayed without the “www,” but the image processor requers it. Use the URL
http://www.daternotes.com/images/profile_photoAlbum/
JOHN_MICHAEL_KANE.jpg
(with no line break, of course) in the image processor if you want to get it to work. You can also right-click on the link and choose “Copy Shortcut” or “Copy Link Location” or your browsers equivalent and paste it into the image processor.
If I ever said it looked as if the puzzles were getting harder, I take it back. This is absurdly easy!
Since we’re in a new city, we only get one camera. I went with the obvious choice: Madison Square Park.
July 31st, 2007
Simonc at GameSetWatch has some interesting thoughts on whether free games are a threat to the AAA game publishers. He concludes that some consumers may “get their ‘fill’ of games from the free Flash-based ones.”
Personally, I think the competition driven by free (or ad-based) games put out there by non-game companies to drum up business for their main business lines will only force the real AAA publishers to innovate (or find innovation and exploit it), and the best games will continue to thrive as they outpace the free loss leaders (though they may put in more and more ads, till they become as bloated with product placement as hit movies are today).
Wind-up toys, once a mainstay of toymakers and a delight to children, are now shoveled over the counter along with Happy Meals. But the best toymakers have gone on to create innovative and genuinely fun new toys over the years.
July 30th, 2007
In today’s challenge in the Ultimate Search for Bourne, which I’ll spoil completely here. Having solved the Day 10 puzzle, we’re rewarded with a video congratulating us on finishing up with London. Our briefing tells us Simon Ross has led us to a briefcase belonging to Jason Bourne that contains a crossword puzzle, then links to it here and advises us that we have lots of tools to use to figure out the answer.
Once again, the crossword puzzle (which is surprisingly easy) is basically a red herring. Some words are already filled out (like “silencer” and “terabyte”) and the correct “canada” has been crossed out. The word “metropolis” made me suspect the correct answer right away, but so far the puzzle itself doesn’t really matter. The key is not to solve the puzzle or use any fancy Google Searches on the words. All you have to do is process the image in the Decryption image filter and the answer appears, a de-scrambling of seven random letters from the puzzle.
And that answer is New York. Pop it in the message transmitter, and you’re ready to place your cameras.
I won’t be too surprised if this puzzle features in an upcoming challenge in the next few days, with a slightly more involved solution involving actually solving some of it, or at least with hints pointing to some of the completed clues. We may be going back to Nicky Parson’s Dater Notes profile, too. There’s an image with “Broadway” scribbled on a napkin arranging a meeting. There are other Broadways in the world, but New York’s is probably the most famous. The question is, who’s John Michael Kane (the filename of that photo)?
My spy shop guess from last week didn’t work with camera placement, so I went with my two successes (the London Eye and Waterloo Station), then chose St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London since they’ve been mentioned before.
July 30th, 2007
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